The U.S. Postal Service is spotlighting the legendary backfield from Notre Dame's 1924 football team on one of its new stamps commemorating the Roaring Twenties. The stamps, issued May 28, 1998, are part of the post office's continuing Celebrate the Century program.
The Four Horsemen were quarterback Harry Stuhldreher, fullback Elmer Layden and halfbacks Jim Crowley and Don Miller. They were immortalized by sports writer Grantland Rice in his account of the Notre Dame-Army game October 18, 1924, at the Polo Grounds in New York City, which began:
"Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore, they are known as famine, pestilence, destruction and death. These are only aliases. Their real names are Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden."
Former Notre Dame quarterback Joe Theismann, a 1971 graduate, spoke at a ceremony commemorating the stamp's issuance May 19 at the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend, Indiana. The last surviving Horseman, Crowley, died in 1986 at age 83.
Two of Stuhldreher's descendants were students at Notre Dame recently. Thomas M. Stuhldreher graduated in December 1997 with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering; he had one of the highest grade-point averages in Notre Dame's College of Engineering. His brother, Tim, also a mechanical engineering major, will graduate in 2000. Harry Stuhldreher was a first cousin of Eugene Stuhldreher, the father of Tim and Tom's father, Thomas J. Stuhldreher, who received a master's degree in 1971.
Pat Harmon, historian for the hall of fame, says the familiar Four Horsemen of Notre Dame photo reproduced on the stamp was taken the day the team returned to campus after the Army win. After reading Rice's story, the team's student publicity manager, George Strickler (later sports editor of the Chicago Tribune), had called home from New York and asked his father to have four horses brought from a livery stable to the practice field the next day. After clearing the idea with Coach Knute Rockne, Strickler hired a photographer and set up the shot. Harmon says Strickler shrewdly had the photographer sign over all rights to the picture to him personally.
This is the third Notre Dame-related commemorative issued by the postal service, following a Knute Rockne stamp in 1988 and a postcard with the Main Building on it in 1991.
The postmaster general selected the images for the Roaring Twenties stamps based on recommendations from the agency's Citizen Stamp Advisory Committee. The committee's members include former Notre Dame men's basketball coach Digger Phelps.
